Is HighLevel AI Free Now? What Is Free, What Is Paid, and the New $20 AI Employee Starter

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Why everyone is confused

After LevelUp, “all AI is free” spread fast in the Facebook groups. It is not what HighLevel wrote. The AI Product Pricing article splits AI into two groups:

• AI Assistants, tools that help you create, build and manage your business. For agency users these are “included at no additional cost, subject to fair-use limits.”
• AI Agents, tools that “perform ongoing tasks on behalf of a business, such as handling customer conversations, answering calls, and managing reviews.” These “remain paid products.”

A common question in the group was whether you need $297 or $497 for “unlimited AI Studio.” The official HighLevel account replied that it is “all plans. Not just the $297/$497 plans.” The docs match that for agency users, though they say “free, subject to fair use” rather than unlimited.

The second thing that trips people up is who “you” are. The free part is for agency users. Your clients logging into their own sub-accounts have different rules.

What is free for agency users

On the $97, $297 and $497 agency plans, the AI pricing article lists these as free, subject to fair use:

*Subject to fair-use limits. HighLevel says “agency users on higher-tier plans receive increased allowances, and the $497 agency plan includes access to advanced Creator Studio models” (AI pricing article).

What is still paid

These are paid for agency and sub-account users alike, either pay-per-use or through an AI Employee plan (AI pricing article):

• Conversation AI, billed by tokens unless covered by AI Employee Growth or Unlimited.
• Voice AI, billed per minute plus model costs. Phone system charges apply to calls on every plan, even with AI Employee Unlimited.
• Reviews AI, $0.01 per AI-assisted reply you actually send. Generating suggestions is free.
• Managed Agents, billed by model and token usage per run.
• Premium Workflow AI actions like Decision Maker, Intent Detection, Summarize Text and Translate, listed at $0.01 per execution.
• The AI Agent workflow action, a paid action with charges based on model and tool usage.
• Agent Studio (Flow Builder), which HighLevel says is pay-per-use on every plan, including all AI Employee plans (AI pricing FAQ).

The AI Employee plans, including the new $20 Starter

AI Employee plans are per sub-account. They give everyone inside that sub-account an AI allowance. There are now three, per the AI pricing article and the pricing guide:

*Subject to fair use.

The Starter plan is the new one. HighLevel says it is “available exclusively to agencies subscribed to HighLevel’s $497 Founder plan” and focuses on AI assistants. It “does not include usage allowances for Conversation AI, Voice AI, Reviews AI, Managed Agents” (AI pricing article). You add it from Agency View, AI, AI Suite, Plans and Limits, then Upgrade Plan on the sub-account (setup article).

So the $20 Starter is for clients who want to build with AI inside their own sub-account. If a client wants a bot answering leads or calls, that is Growth, Unlimited or pay-per-use, based on the allowance table in the AI pricing article.

The $20 AI Assistant plan is being retired

This is a different $20 plan, and the names cause a lot of mix-ups. The old AI Assistant plan was an agency-level subscription for Ask AI and AI Studio. HighLevel is retiring it “as part of Level Up 2026” because those tools are now free for agency users (retirement article).

What that means for you, per HighLevel:

• You don’t need to cancel. It stays active until your current billing cycle ends, then it won’t renew.
• You can’t repurchase it.
• AI Employee Growth and Unlimited are not affected.
• For client sub-accounts, the $20 AI Employee Starter plan is the option (retirement article).

A HighLevel team member gave the same answer in the official Facebook community when a Founder customer asked if they still needed the $20 seat.

How fair use actually works

“Free” has limits. Per the AI pricing article:

• Ask AI, AI Studio and Creator Studio each run on their own rolling five-hour window. It starts at your first action, and unused usage does not carry over.
• When you hit a limit, usage pauses by default. It does not silently start charging you.
• To keep going, an agency admin can enable Extra Usage in AI Suite. That is billed at pay-per-use rates.
• HighLevel can “throttle, limit, require service upgrades, or terminate access” if usage is excessive or abusive.

You can see AI spend, tokens and per-location breakdowns in AI Suite at the agency level.

What are Managed Agents?

This is one of the most asked questions in the group right now. Managed Agents are AI agents you build in Agent Studio that carry out ongoing tasks for a business. HighLevel’s LevelUp roundup lists what they can now do: run from an inbound webhook, pause and follow up minutes or days later, remember user preferences and learned procedures, hand work to subagents, and use a dedicated computer environment to browse websites and manage files.

They are an AI agent, so they are paid. The AI pricing article counts usage in runs. One chat session, one triggered event or one scheduled run each count as a run. AI Employee Growth includes 100 runs a month, Unlimited includes 1,000, Starter includes none, and there are 30 free test runs a month.

Can you resell or mark up AI?

This came up in a busy thread in the official group. The question was how agencies running a white-label offer are meant to mark up AI for their clients, and why a client would pay a reseller when HighLevel’s own $97 plan now includes free AI for agency users. Members gave different answers and I did not see a staff reply, so HighLevel has not clarified that part yet. What the docs do say: “Agencies must be on the $497/month plan to rebill AI Employee usage” (AI pricing article), and rebilling with markup is a Founder Plan feature that is “part of SAAS mode” (pricing guide).

Working out which agency plan you need for AI rebilling? My plan quiz on AgencyGrowth Kit, my other site, asks about sub-accounts, SaaS mode, rebilling, API access, AI and budget, then names the cheapest plan that covers your answers. AgencyGrowth Kit carries my affiliate link too, so I’m saying that up front.

What HighLevel has not said yet

As of 30 October, I could not find these in any official HighLevel page:

• The actual fair-use numbers. HighLevel says higher plans get “increased allowances” and Founder gets “The Most Free AI” on the pricing page, but no per-plan limits are published.
• What “standard usage” means for the $20 Starter. The FAQ says Growth gives 2x and Unlimited gives 5x the Starter allowance, but the base allowance is not published. The same article also labels Unlimited’s Ask AI usage as “Unlimited,” so the 5x line and the table do not fully match.
• Which “advanced Creator Studio models” the $497 plan unlocks.
• Whether sub-account users will ever get Ask AI free. Nothing official says so.

HighLevel also warns that “pricing and model availability may change.” Check the AI pricing article and your in-app billing before you quote a client.

Want to try it? HighLevel’s bootcamp page offers a 30-day free trial plus a free live bootcamp every weekday where they help you set things up. HighLevel notes that communication charges (like SMS and calls) may still apply during the trial. The standard trial on the Founder page is 14 days. Both are my affiliate links, so I earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you.

If 30 days still isn’t enough time to set things up properly, sign up through my link and message me. I’ve helped people get their trial extended, up to 60 days in some cases. It’s personal help from me, not a guaranteed or official HighLevel offer.